The numbers at the end are the access times... numbers of clock cycles it takes to access RAM in various situations... row, column, page, and random. You want those numbers to be as low as possible.

As far as the differences between PC2-4200 (DDR2 533MHz) and PC2-8000 (DDR2 1GHz), you're basically trading latency for sheer speed. In nearly all circumstances, the PC2-8000 will win due to the massive addition of bandwidth (not to mention its higher latency numbers oftentimes are nullified by the fact that its clock cycles are so much faster)._________________Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

Not really. For the situation he's describing, you have to have a processor that won't buckle under the pressure of having so much data going in and out of it. Since the X2 3800 is basically entry level AM2, the difference you will see between the two won't be very big at all._________________"The unofficial first person to edit their sig since 2009! Possibly 2008."

Not to mention AMD processors tend to value low-latency RAM above all else... for Socket 939 chips, you might be better off with CL2 PC2100 than CL3.5 PC3200. Right now the sweet spot for AM2 chips is low-latency PC2-6400 (DDR2 800 MHz), although, for Intel chips... the faster the RAM, the better._________________Official forum economist. Explodes when thrown.

The best deal at the moment is to go with Intel. That article above says that the performance difference between DDR2 400 and DD2 800 is a whopping 6% gain in performance._________________"The unofficial first person to edit their sig since 2009! Possibly 2008."